Dr. Maruthi Akella is a tenured professor with the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) where he holds the Myron L. Begeman Endowed Fellowship in Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering in 1998 from Texas A&M University and prior to joining the UT Austin faculty, he was a postdoctoral fellow with the Yale University Center for Systems Science. Dr. Akella’s research program encompasses control theoretic investigations of nonlinear and coordinated systems, vision-based sensing for state estimation, and development of integrated human and autonomous multivehicle systems. He directs the Controls Lab for Distributed and Uncertain Systems (C-DUS Lab) at UT Austin. Theoretical contributions from his research group have found several highly successful applications in astrodynamics and in the control of space systems and vision-guided robotics. He has published more than 120 research papers in peer-reviewed archival journals and conferences. For his far-reaching contributions to the field of attitude estimation and control, Dr. Akella was awarded the 2013 Mechanics and Control of Flight Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics (JGCD), the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences (JAS), and the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (T-AES). Dr. Akella is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society (AAS) and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA.